No Travel Plan is Complete Without a Trip to the Library

If your summer plans include a long-distance trip or just long walks in the neighborhood, consider taking the library with you.

You know about books, audiobooks, e-books and tunes on CDs. But have you heard about Playaways?

The Playaway is one of the newer audio formats for checkout from the library. Think of it as an MP3 player that’s preloaded with a single book. You provide one AAA battery and the headset – or we sell earbuds for $1.

The device is small and portable for plane or car travel. It’s also a perfect companion for that walking program you’ve vowed to start this spring.

Library District Collection Services Manager Lisa Sampley says each branch has multiple Playaways in a variety of classic and current titles for children, teens and adults, from bestsellers to classics, popular westerns to biographies and popular Christian fiction.

Find out if we have your favorites by going to thelibrary.org and type in the keyword, “Playaway.” You can also peruse the collection at your local branch library.
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Speaking of travel, one resource we regret you won’t find anymore at the library is the popular Rosetta Stone CD-ROM language system. Here’s why: Rosetta Stone made a corporate decision two years ago to stop selling the popular system to public libraries, preferring distribution only through retail outlets.

The good news is the library still carries a variety of language learning systems. Most requested are Spanish, French, German and Italian, but our collection goes beyond, including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, Danish, Portugese and more.

Can’t find what you need? We have an updated solution for that.

Patrons have long been able to suggest titles they’d like to see added to the collection. With a recent upgrade, they can now also track the status of their request online and what action was taken. Patrons may also submit three requests per month instead of two.

“Patrons are always interested in knowing the status of their suggestions, so this will be a great new vehicle for communicating that to them,” Sampley says. “The library values patrons’ suggestions for purchases as we continue to build the district’s collection.”

Kathleen O’Dell is community relations director of the Springfield-Greene County Library District. She can be reached at kathleeno@thelibrary.org.

Kathleen O'Dell is community relations director for the Springfield-Greene County Library District. She can be reached at kathleeno@thelibrary.org.